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Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

This book is the 17th volume of a relatively new series, inaugurated in2002 under the general editorship of Ruth Wodak and Greg Myers. Its aim isto investigate ''political, social and cultural processes from alinguistic/discourse-analytic point of view'' (ii). Following a symposium'Manipulation in the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century',held in Ascona, Switzerland, in 2002, Louis de Saussure and Peter Schulzedited twelve papers for inclusion in the volume. Each contribution standson its own and can be read by itself. While all articles deal with thegeneral theme manipulation and / or ideology, they follow differenttheoretical approaches, primarily argumentation theory and relevancetheory. An index (305-312) is a welcome addition. In the following, I willbriefly summarize each contribution.

SUMMARY

FRANS VON EEMEREN talks about the difficulty of a comprehensive definitionof manipulation in ''Foreword: Preview by review'' (ix-xv) before he definesmanipulative discourse as discourse which is ''intentionally deceiving one'saddressees by persuading them of something that is foremost in one's owninterest through the covert use of communicative devices that are not inagreement with generally acknowledged critical standards of reasonableness''(xii). Manipulation always appears in the context of communication and themanipulator's intentions are covert, albeit not always insincere. Aspromised in the title of his contribution, Eemeren briefly summarizes thepapers.

In their ''Introduction'' (1-14), LOUIS DE SAUSSURE and PETER SCHULZ followEemeren's assessment that manipulation or manipulative discourse is verydifficult to define and argue that manipulative discourse has very fuzzyborders. They provide the reader with a catalogue of issues that need to beconsidered in the examination of manipulative discourse. In agreement withViktor Klemperer, who published his detailed observations of Nazimanipulation and propaganda in 'Lingua Tertii Imperii – LTI', the editorsshow that ''rigorous analysis of the discourse, its contents and itspackaging, and therefore of the communicated material (allows) for thedetection of deceptive intentions,'' (4) adding also that not all''manipulative tricks'' are used solely for manipulative discourse. Ananalytical summary of the contributions ends the chapter.

Similarly, PAUL CHILTON first considers the problem of definingmanipulation in ''Manipulation, memes and metaphors: The case of 'MeinKampf''' (15-43). Chilton ''dismantles'' (27) 'Mein Kampf' on three tiers, thesectional, propositional as well as the metaphorical. Chilton uses a 1939German edition and a 1969 translation of 'Mein Kampf'. It is sometimesdifficult to differentiate between the author's summaries or rephrasingsand the Mannheim translation. Chilton finds also in 'Mein Kampf' that ideasspread by memes, which somehow travel from mind to mind. He concludes bysuggesting that ''we still have to explain why the ideas (or memes) were soinfluential'' (41).

Following Lévy, PAUL DANLER maintains that ''discourse itself is a form ofpower'' (45) in ''Morpho-syntactic and textual realizations as deliberatepragmatic argumentative linguistic tools?'' (45-60). In excerpts fromMussolini's speeches, he finds manipulation present in language in use anddiscusses its implicit and explicit features. It is not clearly indicatedif Danler uses his own or an official translation of Mussolini's speeches.Danler concludes that the implicit message is often more important than theexplicit message.

In his contribution ''Towards a typology of manipulative processes'' (61-83),EDDO RIGOTTI characterizes a message as manipulative ''if it twists thevision of the world...in the mind of the addressee, so that he/she isprevented from having a healthy attitude towards decision..., and pursuesthe manipulator's goal in the illusion of pursuing her/his own goal'' (68).He recognizes a number of manipulative processes: falsity and insincerity;fallacies; violating presuppositions; manipulation exploiting the humaninstinct of referring to totality; and polarity temptation (70-73). Mostinterestingly, he also points to another danger, namely ''the manipulativeexploitation of the agenda setting power of the media'' (73), which impliesthat the news it broadcasts is the news worth broadcasting.

ANDREA ROCCI in ''Are manipulative texts 'coherent'? Manipulation,presupposition and (in-) congruity'' (85-112), uses Congruity Theory in hisinvestigation of manipulative texts. A good theory, he says, should be ableto detect semantic defects in texts. His analysis of the English version ofa Mussolini speech excerpt finds that there is a perceived coherence eventhough the manipulative text is actually incongruous, which in turn makesit powerfully influential. It is not entirely clear here, too, whotranslated the text. Rocci concludes that in ''order to evaluatemanipulative moves in argumentative texts, one has to richly characterizethe presuppositions of argumentative connective predicates at differentlevels'' (104). He strongly cautions against a one size fits all approach.

LOUIS DE SAUSSURE's ''Manipulation and cognitive pragmatics: Preliminaryhypotheses'' (113-145) uses Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory as aframework. His working definition ''A manipulative discourse is a discourseproduced in order to persuade the addressee of a set of propositionsP1...Pn of type T with appropriate strategies S'' (120) suggests thatmanipulation is a subtype of persuasion, and includes intent, istransmitted covertly and seems to be most often successful in societiesthat are in a state of crisis. Manipulation, in conclusion, is a problem atthe pragmatic and contextual level and needs to be investigated as such.

NICHOLAS ALLOTT, ''The role of misused concepts in manufacturing consent: Acognitive account'' (147-168), talks about the misuse of concepts in thepolitical classes of the developed West. The concept of democracy has beenmisused as in the official statements like ''The yearning to see Americandemocracy duplicated throughout the world has been a constant theme ofAmerican foreign policy'' (148). Focusing on the term 'democracy', Allottwrites that this statement should be taken as false. But I can also seethat if we focus on 'yearning' then we can say that the statement is true,as the WISH to spread democracy may be sincere, even if the realization mayleave something to be desired. Nonetheless, giving numerous examples,Allott raises many interesting points using several models, one of them hisown which he ultimately rejects (code-word model) and concludes that thepragmatic illusion / shallow processing model is the most advantageous.

In her contribution, ''Manipulation in the speeches and writings of Hitlerand the NSDAP from a relevance theoretic point of view'' (169-190), REGINABLASS states that ''manipulation of the population of Germany had been atthe bottom of the success of the Nazis'' (169). She sees manipulation as aform of deception which always includes intent and calls it a type ofcovert persuasion. Asides from some missed opportunities to edit, thereseem to be some translation problems in the paper when she (I assume)translates ''Aubenpolitik'' with ''exterior politics'' (179). She onlyindicates once that a translation is her own (ibid.), but does not indicatethe translator of other passages. Nonetheless, following a Relevance Theoryapproach, she contributes to the discussion of manipulation especially intotalitarian systems, when she adds Taillard's persuasive intention toSperber and Wilson's informative and communicative intentions. Manipulationof the Germans under Hitler happened in part because Hitler and the Germansshared certain common goals, e.g., many people were already anti-semiticand ''the addressees were largely prevented from checking the truth'' (186).She concludes that the mechanisms of Nazi manipulation may also be found inother totalitarian systems.

Using principles of speech act theory, CORNELIA ILIE focuses oninterpersonal and mental manipulation in ''An integrated approach to theanalysis of participant roles in totalitarian discourse: The case ofCeauşescu's agent roles'' (191-211). In particular, she investigates theAgent, Co-Agent and Patient roles using an integrated pragma-semanticapproach. Ilie indicates that she translated the speeches and, in addition,talks about the translation implications, when she tries to illuminate theintricacies of Romanian persuasive speech. She concludes that ''politicalrepression, which is meant to silence possible opposition (and)...thepersonality cult, which is meant to rule out alternative voices'' (209) arethe two main strategies used by the Ceauşescu regime.

MANFRED KIENPOINTNER denies the existence of a neutral standpoint andneutral language in the opening of his contribution ''Racist manipulationwithin Austrian, German, Dutch, French and Italian right-wing populism''(213-235). Therefore, he attempts neutral definitions of ideology andpropaganda, and advises that any critical analysis needs to be based on''plentiful authentic material'' (217). He uses speeches on immigrationissues by European right-wing populists Le Pen, Haider, Schill, Bossi andFortuyn. In his analysis he focuses on two schemes, ''the pragmatic argumentand the use of statistically-founded illustrative examples in politicalargumentation'' (219) as well as hyperbolic and metaphorical statements. Hefinds that while Le Pen and Haider do use manipulative techniques ofargumentation, Bossi and Schill appear to use more moderate techniques andFortuyn emerges basically in line with the political speech of thetraditional conservatives.

Applying Fauconnier's theory of mental spaces, Paul Werth's text worldtheory, and Hawkins' warrior iconography, CARLOS INCHAURRALDE investigatesPinochet's image in ''Intertextuality, mental spaces and the fall of a hero:Pinochet as a developing topic'' (237-250). Pinochet appears as a hero intexts for domestic consumption, in external texts he is portrayed as avillain. Inchaurralde concludes ''that there is a fundamental opposition,which relates to two opposed views of the same story, one which sees theformer Chilean dictator as a hero (or victim) and another which sees him asa villain'' (249).

DANIEL WEISS follows the Moscow Semantic School in his comparison ofFascism and Stalinism in ''Stalinist vs. fascist propaganda: How much dothey have in common?'' (251-274). In particular he investigates two aspects,''the linguistic manifestation of the mechanisms of terror and of the cultof personality'' (252). He finds that in contrast to Stalinist propaganda,Nazi propaganda is an arbitrary discourse, e.g., at times valuing the old,at other times despising it. On the other hand, ''Nazi terror appeared morerational...since its victims were predictable. Stalinist terror, on thecontrary, seemed irrational in that it could target just about anyone''(265). Weiss concludes that ''the essence of totalitarian speech does notlie in its manipulative force; its main goal is rather to overwhelm theaudience by a permanent flow of emotionally loaded and often violent, buthighly repetitious speech'' (269).

In the final contribution, JÜRGEN WILKE gives a historical overview of theincreasingly tightened Nazi press control from daily news conferences to'Tagesparolen' (daily watchwords) in ''Press instructions as a tool tomanipulate the public under the German Nazi government. With an eye towardsthe German Democratic Republic'' (275-303). Initially, he definesmanipulation ''as only presenting the public with a one-sided view of theworld and influencing the formation of a public opinion which conforms tothe regime's own objectives and interests'' (276). There was an enormouspressure on journalists under the Nazis to conform to the official point ofview. The average number of press instructions per month increasedsubstantially, in 1939, for example, there were 385 versus 47 in 1933. Inaddition, Wilke classifies the instructions according to subject. Finally,he compares the press control under the Nazis to press control in theGerman Democratic Republic and finds that similar issues were at play, inthat both systems needed total media control.

EVALUATION

Each paper is full of valuable suggestions and ideas which cannot be donejustice in a book review. The quality of the papers is varied, some areexcellent, and others are in need of tighter editing. Further shortcomingsare that the translators are often not indicated and that in some instancesabbreviations are not explained. While this may not be a problem if allpapers follow the same approach, it makes it somewhat more difficult for areader as most papers follow different approaches or the authors adapt avariety of approaches for their particular purposes.

However, all in all, the book is an invaluable contribution and should be a''must read'' for anybody investigating manipulation and ideology. It showsthat researchers can come to similar conclusions by means of differentapproaches and thus suggests that an eclectic, data-driven approach may bewhat is ultimately needed.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Katharina Barbe (Ph.D., Rice University) is an Associate Professor andCoordinator of the Division of German, Classics, Slavic and Asian Languagesat Northern Illinois University. She has published Irony in Context (1995,John Benjamins) and numerous articles in journals such as Journal ofPragmatics, META: Translator's Journal, Perspectives: Studies inTranslatology, Unterrichtspraxis: Teaching German and Language andCommunication. Currently she is working on a project entitled "'A poisonousdiscourse': Whorf and Klemperer on linguistic relativity and propaganda" aswell as on a translation evaluation of the English and Spanish versions ofKlemperer's LTI.